Do you work until inspiration hits, or wait for inspiration and then get started? | 10-09-12 QOW

So......... for you personally, how do the muses arrive? Do they decend from on high and "lay one on ya".... or do you drag them kicking and screaming from the dark corners of the studio?

Do you work until inspiration hits, or wait for inspiration and then get started?

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Usually my great ideas come from a light bulb going off inside my head, this usually happens when I am doing a mundane chore. The other source of inspirations occur while I'm sleeping, the last time it happened was a month ago. I had just fallen asleep when I started to see a slide show of pottery, when the show was over I sat up and quickly sketched the ones I could remember and wrote down some ideas. The next morning I looked at the sketches and they turned out pretty well the written info didn't hardly even look like words, but I still ended up with some new design ideas. Denice

The old right brain kicks in when I'm walking the dog, driving,surfing the net. I have about 5 sketchbooks which I can never find when needed, so all of my great stuff is on hunks of paper.
I also look at other artists work on youtube, google, etc.
TJR.

That's not something I ever think or worry about. I carry my iPad with me always, and use the camera for reference shots; I use Paper 53 for a sketch and idea book. Inspiration is all around me. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by too many ideas but never for lack of ideas.

Due to my need to teach courses in various media, I find myself creating different bodies of work for each kind of material that I am using. I am not only inspired by the material itself, but of course I am also interested in seeing if there is a common thread or concept behind these various bodies of work. I would love to always work in clay, but when I find that I am without a studio, or that I have to take up another material, I can usually create work that I feel passsionate about given a little time.

My favorite quote on this subject is by artist Chuck Close, I whole heartedly agree...
"The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.”

definitely just keep working. I find residencies challenging my thought processes and force me to respond to varying situations that yield new stimulating ideas that begin away from home base but last to rejuvenate when I return to my own studio. I like coming home with new ideas, plans for new directions or varying and changing old ones. I like doing residencies as part of a fresh look at one's direction. can not recommend them more.
Marcia

Who ever said that people that have a ta da moments are sitting around waiting for them, I don't even think you could have one if you weren't working hard in your studio. Your mind keeps working trying to solve problems especially during sleep. Please tell me how inspiration is deceptive, inspiration can give you anything from a detail to put on a lid or a new direction in design. Ta da moments are great they give your work energy and you can't wait to get out to your shop and see where your inspiration takes you. Denice

Who ever said that people that have a ta da moments are sitting around waiting for them, I don't even think you could have one if you weren't working hard in your studio. Your mind keeps working trying to solve problems especially during sleep. Please tell me how inspiration is deceptive, inspiration can give you anything from a detail to put on a lid or a new direction in design. Ta da moments are great they give your work energy and you can't wait to get out to your shop and see where your inspiration takes you. Denice

Right on Denice, whatever we call our "ta da moment" it is inspiration that gets us there. My friend Webster tells me: Deceptive adj. Having the tendency or power to deceive; Inspiration noun, The stimulation within the mind of some idea, feeling, or impulse which leads to creative action; a divine or holy presence which inspires; the act of inhaling air.

I, too, work or have worked in various media. My attitude and approach changes with each type, and I've found it difficult to explain to some people that sculpting in wood is very different than clay or even modeling in wax for a bronze pour. Just wanted to say it's nice to meet a kindred spirit.

So......... for you personally, how do the muses arrive? Do they decend from on high and "lay one on ya".... or do you drag them kicking and screaming from the dark corners of the studio?

Do you work until inspiration hits, or wait for inspiration and then get started?

Check out joining the Potters Council ( www.potterscouncil.org ) for more networking possibilities, peer mentoring opportunities, discounts on books, magazines, and DVDs, health insurance, credit card merchant programs, and many other member benefits.

One day, I was talking on the phone (boring conversation) and doodling and a very strange looking sculptural piece emerged–the antithesis of what I was working on. It just happens. Often, a fully formed image comes to my mind, usually just before or after sleep, in the shower, or when I clear my mind and let new ideas come in. Then I do a sketch and get over to the studio. The final product is very close to the impulse and first sketch–I don’t mess with that original design because when it first appears, it is in its purest form.

Another technique is just to grab some clay, start manipulating it and let it tell you what it wants to be.

All this involves being open to your intuition and not being afraid of failing. That judgement thing really blocks creativity.Just stop thinking and trying and you'll get an idea.

For the handbuilded works I find my inspiration in natur. Unfortunately I never have my camera with me or a textbook to draw what inspired me, so I always rush home and hope I will remember everything in vivid detail. The opposite way round is when I'am throwing pieces. I almost never know what I will get when I throw a chunk of clay onto the wheel and start spinning. I then let me guide from my intuition (regarding the shape).